What are the advantages quantum computing can provide when compared to classical computing? In this thesis, we aim to answer this question from different perspectives. To achieve this goal we divided this work into three parts. In Part I we start by studying the basic principles of quantum computing. Next, we introduce two quantum algorithms: the Deutsch-Jozsa and Grovers algorithms. The first algorithm has a lower query complexity and the second has a lower time complexity when compared with the best classical algorithm for the same problems. The final topic of this initial part is a detailed explanation and example of how to use Grovers algorithm to solve a Boolean formula in conjunctive normal form. In the second part, we focus on communication complexity problems. These problems are usually stated as follows: two spatially separated parties Alice and Bob receive an input from a referee. Their goal is to compute the value of a function that depends on both of their inputs with the least amount of communication between them. In Part II we will introduce protocols in which the transmission of quantum bits (qubits), instead of bits, can reduce the amount of communication necessary to solve these problems. We also study how Alice and Bob can use quantum entanglement to solve two communication complexity problems without communicating something that can not be done classically. In Part III we study nonlocal games inspired by standard graph theory parameters. A nonlocal game is usually defined as a game in which players that can share and do computations in an entangled state have some sort of advantage over classical players. We begin this final part by introducing the quantum chromatic number of a graph, which is the minimal number of colors necessary in a nonlocal game in which Alice and Bob can convince a referee with certainty that they have a proper coloring of the graph. We end this thesis by introducing other two quantum graph parameters, one related to graph homomorphism and the other to the independence number of a graph.
What are the advantages quantum computing can provide when compared to classical computing? In this thesis, we aim to answer this question from different perspectives. To achieve this goal we divided this work into three parts. In Part I we start by studying the basic principles of quantum computing. Next, we introduce two quantum algorithms: the Deutsch-Jozsa and Grovers algorithms. The first algorithm has a lower query complexity and the second has a lower time complexity when compared with the best classical algorithm for the same problems. The final topic of this initial part is a detailed explanation and example of how to use Grovers algorithm to solve a Boolean formula in conjunctive normal form. In the second part, we focus on communication complexity problems. These problems are usually stated as follows: two spatially separated parties Alice and Bob receive an input from a referee. Their goal is to compute the value of a function that depends on both of their inputs with the least amount of communication between them. In Part II we will introduce protocols in which the transmission of quantum bits (qubits), instead of bits, can reduce the amount of communication necessary to solve these problems. We also study how Alice and Bob can use quantum entanglement to solve two communication complexity problems without communicating something that can not be done classically. In Part III we study nonlocal games inspired by standard graph theory parameters. A nonlocal game is usually defined as a game in which players that can share and do computations in an entangled state have some sort of advantage over classical players. We begin this final part by introducing the quantum chromatic number of a graph, which is the minimal number of colors necessary in a nonlocal game in which Alice and Bob can convince a referee with certainty that they have a proper coloring of the graph. We end this thesis by introducing other two quantum graph parameters, one related to graph homomorphism and the other to the independence number of a graph.
This thesis explores the interplay between structure and randomness in quantum computation, with the goal being to characterise the types of structure that give quantum computers an advantage over classical computation. The thesis begins by giving a necessary and sufficient condition for one notion of a quantum walk to be defined on a directed graph, and goes on to derive conditions on the structure of graphs that allow a quantum advantage in a non-local graph colouring game. A lower bound on entanglement-assisted quantum communication complexity based on information-theoretic ideas is given, and applied to the communication complexity of random functions. New lower bounds on the probability of success of quantum state discrimination are derived, and are applied to the problem of distinguishing random quantum states. This result is used to show a quantum advantage in almost all instances of a bounded-error single-query oracle identification problem. Lower bounds, and almost optimal algorithms, are given for two models of quantum search of partially ordered sets. This leads to the development of an optimal quantum algorithm to find the intersection of two sorted lists.
We study quantum entanglement and some of its applications in graph theory and zero-error information theory. In Chapter 1 we introduce entanglement and other fundamental concepts of quantum theory. In Chapter 2 we address the question of how much quantum correlations generated by entanglement can deviate from classical predictions. We focus on non-local games: experiments in which two players are separated and forbidden to communicate, and have to collaborate to accomplish a task. We give two games exhibiting quantum-classical separations close to optimal. Remarkably, our results in theoretical physics are inspired by theoretical computer science. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the study of quantum graph parameters. Well-known quantities such as the chromatic number and the independence number of a graph can be interpreted as parameters for non-local games. A definition of quantum graph parameters follows from this fact. We contribute to the field in a number of ways. Among other results, we find a surprising characterization of the quantum chromatic number that relates to the Kochen-Specker theorem, a result in the foundations of quantum mechanics. In Chapter 4, we move to zero-error information theory. We study the zero error capacity of a classical noisy channel when the sender and the receiver can use quantum entanglement. We initiate the study of the source problem and source-channel problem with entanglement and we find channels and sources that exhibit a strong divergence in quantum and classical behaviours. To do that, we use results in combinatorics, linear algebra, optimization and number theory.
The main objective of this paper is to provide illustrative examples of distributed computing problems for which it is possible to design tight lower bounds for quantum algorithms without having to manipulate concepts from quantum mechanics, at all. As a case study, we address the following class of 2-player problems. Alice (resp., Bob) receives a boolean x (resp., y) as input, and must return a boolean a (resp., b) as output. A game between Alice and Bob is defined by a pair (?, f) of boolean functions. The objective of Alice and Bob playing game (?, f) is, for every pair (x, y) of inputs, to output values a and b, respectively, satisfying ?(a, b) = f(x, y), in absence of any communication between the two players, but in presence of shared resources. The ability of the two players to solve the game then depends on the type of resources they share. It is known that, for the so-called CHSH game, i.e., for the game a ? b = x ? y, the ability for the players to use entangled quantum bits (qubits) helps. We show that, apart from the CHSH game, quantum correlations do not help, in the sense that, for every game not equivalent to the CHSH game, there exists a classical protocol (using shared randomness) whose probability of success is at least as large as the one of any protocol using quantum resources. This result holds for both worst case and average case analysis. It is achieved by considering a model stronger than quantum correlations, the non-signaling model, which subsumes quantum mechanics, but is far easier to handle.
In this work we introduce an intermediate setting between quantum nonlocality and communication complexity problems. More precisely, we study the value of XOR games G when Alice and Bob are allowed to use a limited amount of one-way classical communication ωo.w.−c(G) (resp. one-way quantum communication ωo.w.−c∗(G)), where c denotes the number of bits (resp. qubits). The key quantity here is the quotient ωo.w.−c∗(G)/ωo.w.−c(G). We provide a universal way to obtain Bell inequality violations of general Bell functionals from XOR games for which the quotient ωo.w.−c∗(G)/ωo.w.−2c(G) is larger than 1. This allows, in particular, to find (unbounded) Bell inequality violations from communication complexity problems in the same spirit as the recent work by Buhrman et al. (2016). We also provide an example of a XOR game for which the previous quotient is optimal (up to a logarithmic factor) in terms of the amount of information c. Interestingly, this game has only polynomially many inputs per player. For the related problem of separating the classical vs quantum communication complexity of a function, the known examples attaining exponential separation require exponentially many inputs per party.
This dissertation contains results on three quite different topics. First, I investigate the entanglement resources required for two parties to jointly implement a unitary operation using local operations and classical communication (LOCC). If this resource is of smallest feasible Schmidt rank then it must be maximally entangled. If the Schmidt rank is higher, less entanglement may suffice. Second, I investigate the source of the “quantum speedup”. I quantify quantum interference and show that in order for a quantum computer to be significantly faster than a classical computer, it must make use of operations capable of producing large amounts of interference (or a large number of operations that can produce small amounts of interference). A quantum computer not making use of such a resource can be efficiently simulated by a classical computer. Third, I investigate zero-error source-channel coding. In this scenario, Alice wishes to convey a message to Bob through a noisy channel, with zero chance of error, in the case where Bob already has some prior knowledge regarding the message that is to be sent. For classical messages and classical channels, it was known that three graph invariants of Lovász, Szegedy, and Schrijver provide necessary conditions for this task. We show that this applies also when Alice and Bob make use of an entangled state, unifying and extending a series of previous results. Finally, I introduce a fully quantum version of source-channel coding where the message to be sent, the channel, and the side information are all quantum. Whereas the classical case makes use of graphs, the quantum case makes use of non-commutative graphs. I generalize the concept of graph homomorphism, as well as the Szegedy and Schrijver numbers, to non-commutative graphs and show that the necessary conditions for the classical case generalize to the quantum case. Using this theory, I construct a quantum channel whose one-shot zero-error entanglement assisted capacity can only be unlocked using a non-maximally entangled state, showing that in this case less is more when it comes to entanglement resources.
In this PhD thesis we study the effects of quantum entanglement, one of quantum mechanics most peculiar features, in nonlocal games and communication problems in zero-error information theory. A nonlocal game is a thought experiment in which two cooperating players, who are forbidden to communicate, want to perform a certain task. Zero-error information theory is the mathematical field that studies communication problems where no error is tolerated. The unifying link among the various scenarios we consider is their combinatorial nature and in particular their reformulations as graph theoretical problems, mainly concerning the chromatic and stability numbers and some quantum generalizations thereof. In this thesis we propose a novel approach to the study of these quantum graph parameters using the paradigm of conic optimization. For that, we introduce and study the completely positive semidefinite cone, a new matrix cone consisting of all symmetric matrices that admit a Gram representation by positive semidefinite matrices. Furthermore, we investigate whether entanglement allows for better-than-classical communication schemes in some well-known problems from zero-error information theory. For example we study the channel coding problem, which asks a sender to transmit data reliably to a receiver in the presence of noise, as well as some of its generalizations.